My Chinese-America

by Allen Gee

Overview

Eloquently written essays about aspects of Asian American life comprise this collection that looks at how Asian-Americans view themselves in light of America’s insensitivities, stereotypes, and expectations. My Chinese-America speaks on masculinity, identity, and topics ranging from Jeremy Lin and immigration to profiling and Asian silences. This essays have an intimacy that transcends cultural boundaries, and casts light on a vital part of American culture that surrounds and influences all of us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781939650306
Publisher:	Santa Fe Writer's Project
Publication date:	04/01/2015
Series:	SFWP Literary Awards
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	188
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Allen Gee is an associate professor of English at Georgia College, where he teaches in the MFA program, and edits for the journal Arts & Letters. He lives in Milledgeville, Georgia.

Table of Contents

Profile 1

Is It Safe There? 11

Osaka 25

Fraught with Masculinity 41

Silences 57

Point Guard 75

Asians in the Library 91

The Real New South 105

Echocardiography 125

By 2042 139

My Chinese-America 155

Editorial Reviews

01/12/2015
In this perceptive, honest, and deeply probing set of essays, Gee, an English professor at Georgia College, explores the heightened self-consciousness Asian-Americans feel as a result of living in a country where American is still often conflated with white. Gee describes with quiet force his sense of being treated as an outsider despite being a third-generation citizen. He confronts media stereotypes of the “Asian prodigy,” the “model minority,” and the “typically emasculated Asian male,” as seen in encounters with people who consider his Chinese heritage variously exotic, obscure, or threatening. Masculinity, mobility, history, and the American dream of equality all take their turn under Gee’s lens, as he shrewdly navigates a culture saturated with the privilege of white America and the realities of continued segregation in the so-called New South. Whether he is reflecting on Jeremy Lin, racism, fishing, or the fragility of the aging body, Gee’s humor, insight, and voice offer the sharp reminder that “nothing can be taken for granted on a day-to-day basis for a person of color, not even in contemporary America,” but at the same time he holds out hope for a brighter “emotional human landscape” with room enough for all. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"This collection presents a part of American culture that most readers are not particularly familiar with, shedding light into a world that has been in the shadows. These essays are told slowly and meticulously with a subtle style that engages and entices the reader—a very difficult undertaking that succeeds admirably. There are messages and astute reflections here, that kept me and will keep others captivated.”  —Lee Gutkind, founder and editor, Creative Nonfiction literary magazine


“This is truth-telling, which is harder to do in a highly diverse cultural context like America. My Chinese-America depicts how Asian-Americans view themselves compared to the insensitivities of the nation. Each essay has its own identity, eloquently defining what makes us human. Vital sensibilities are here, not eroded by Western beliefs, and these moral values should be greatly appreciated.”  —James Alan McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer


"Intimate and wide-ranging, these probing essays complicate our picture of both Asian Americans and America. I will be thinking about all Gee so ably describes for a long time."  —Gish Jen, award-winning author


"Masculinity, mobility, history, and the American dream of equality all take their turn under Gee’s lens, as he shrewdly navigates a culture saturated with the privilege of white America and the realities of continued segregation in the so-called New South." —Publishers Weekly


"An arresting contribution to Chinese-American literature. These essays — honest, inventive, and deft in form — clearly contribute to the best of contemporary creative nonfiction, especially as it concerns American racism and integrity of self. They bear comparison to James Alan McPherson's A Region Not Home, and to the examples of James Baldwin, George Orwell, and Thoreau." —DeWitt Henry, Ploughshares


"Provocative and thought-provoking essays." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher